This invention concerns cone winding of a strand and especially the driving of a package core upon which the strand is being wound.
In winding a strand upon a conical package core, the large end of the cone rotates with a higher peripheral speed than the small end, producing a greater tension on the strand. The different tensions produce changes in the physical characteristics of some types of yarn, which changes are undesirable. The high tension at the wide end may result in breakage of the strand. It is common to drive the cone initially by a frictional engagement with the core intermediate its ends and later by engagement with the strands wound on the core at such driven position. The rate at which the strand is wound over that driven position is thus maintained constant. The rate at which the strand is wound over any other position along the length of the cone is also constant, but increases as the winding progresses toward the large end and decreases as the winding progresses toward the small end. In order to reduce the effect of such changes in the winding rate, various types of strand accumulators have been employed to store some of the strand when the winding rate is low at the small end of the cone and to release the stored strand when the winding rate is high at the larger end of the cone, thus maintaining the tension on the strand substantially constant. This is satisfactory when the strand is being traversed to produce a high helix angle, but it is ineffective to reduce the tension while a creeling tail is being wound on the large end of the cone.